Goodnight, Sweet Prince

Tomorrow, for the first morning in seven years, the world will wake up to find Ron Zook unemployed.

The sun might as well not come up. The Mayans might as well be right. We might as well all just commit suicide and leave it at that, for all is lost.

Now, who will go for two point conversions just for shits and giggles? Who will allow the prolific Scheelhaase-to-Jenkins combo to flourish? Who will create his defensive playbook on the fly by pressing the Ask Madden button? Who will look so hot and dangerous while waterskiing? 

The answer is nobody, my friends. Though there are many worthy candidates for the Illinois head coaching position- namely, Mike Leach and Kalen Wagoner- those men, and all others really, are incapable of filling the Zooker's small, oddly-shaped, putrid-smelling shoes. 

'Tis a shame the old Greek poets have long been gone, for Homer could've written a bitchin' tome about the tragic hero named Ron Zook.

College Football Poll- The EVERYTHING IS GOING TO HELL! Edition

Horrible things are happening in college football, you guys. Boise State has lost! Stanford has lost! Oklahoma State is about to lose to the juggernaut that is Oklahoma! These teams were three of our favorites; we wanted to see one of them take on LSU for the national championship. Had that happened, there would be no bad result in our eyes. We have noted our love for Les Miles and LSU before, and have no problem with them taking home another title for the SEC! SEC! SEC! (Are we Mizzou folk allowed that cheer yet?) But we also love the multitalented Mike Gundy, Andrew Luck and his enviable neck beard, and, of course, the Idahoan smurfs who will be number one in our hearts forever. 

Stanford and Boise appear to have no shot at this point; Oklahoma State has a seeming walkover in Ames (though you never know when Paul Rhoads will get Iowa State playing quality football) before a stiff test against the archrival Sooners in the last-week Bedlam game that may serve as a de-facto play in for the national championship. Though Oklahoma will miss Ryan Broyles, the little engine that's powered their ruthlessly effective passing game for what seems like forever, the Sooners' talent caliber still overwhelms the Cowboys' as a whole. In the end, Okie State will have to score, and score a shit ton, to give themselves a chance, as their rather porous (but opportunistic) defense will not stop the Sooners. We hope Gundy can find a way to pull it out, but we just don't see it happening.

Where does that leave us? The short answer- some level of chaos. It could be DEFCON 3, or it could be DEFCON 1, but a hypothetical Oklahoma State loss leaves the BCS without two clear choices. This isn't Auburn-Oregon of last year, or Texas-USC of a few years ago. The outcome won't be objective. It won't be fair. People gon' be pissssed.

Here's the DEFCON 3 scenario. Does Alabama deserve a rematch with LSU after losing an ugly game at home? Does Oregon deserve another neutral field game against the Tigers after their own week one loss? Does nobody deserve a rematch, opening the door to an Oklahoma team that got dominated at home by a shitty Texas Tech team? Does Oklahoma State, who blew out the Red Raiders 66-6 on the road, deserve to stay ahead of their in-state rivals after a hypothetical loss? If Clemson wins out, they'll have impressive wins over Auburn, South Carolina, and Virginia Tech (twice); how are they worse than an Alabama squad that's beaten Arkansas, Penn State, Auburn, and nobody else? Or should we just say fuck it and put Houston in the national championship instead? 

Where we all really go to hell, though, is if Arkansas goes into Tiger Stadium and beats LSU on Black Friday. If this happens, the top three teams in the SEC West will all be 11-1, ranked in the top five, and sporting losses to each other, we will be at DEFCON 1, Iran will drop a nuke on Mike Slive's bunker, and Jon Huntsman will become president.  

But really, though- how do you break the tie to determine who gets to wipe Georgia off the field in the SEC Championship? Alabama will have the most convincing win, a resounding victory over a banged-up Arkansas at home. Arkansas will have the best win, knocking off #1 in their own house. LSU will have the best body of work, having rolled through the SEC and beating Oregon along the way. 

The system that would determine who gets that right? The BCS rankings, of course. It's the BCS determining the BCS, it's own self-fulfilling prophecy. With the Penn State scandal making the game no fun off the field, the last thing the game needs is another huge BCS controversy.

So please, LSU and Oklahoma State- make this simple for everyone and just win the rest of your fucking games pretty please?!

We finish with our poll. Be looking for something non-football related soon. -kw-

1. LSU
2. Oklahoma State
3. Oregon
4. Alabama
5. Oklahoma
6. Arkansas
7. Clemson
8. Houston
9. Stanford
10. Virginia Tech
11. Boise State
12. Georgia
13. Kansas State
14. Wisconsin
15. South Carolina
16. Southern Miss
17. Michigan State
18. Michigan
19. Nebraska
20. Baylor
21. TCU
22. Virginia
23. Notre Dame
24. Georgia Tech
25. Illinois (FOR THE LOLZ)

SHOTS SHOTS SHOTS SHOTS IN CHAMPAIGN-URBANA

(DISCLAIMER: We did not come up with the idea for this post. For complaints about offensiveness, contact somebody who lives in Highland and goes to UIUC. There are like 15 of them. Take your pick.)

URBANA, IL- A starting safety for the University of Illinois football team was shot in the hand at an off-campus party Sunday night by a disgruntled fan who claims the incident was a hit gone wrong.

Trulon Henry and two other victims were shot by 35-year old Todd Bradley, a sociology teacher from Troy, IL, after a brief fight on the patio of the Urbana home.

While Bradley struck a blow to the reeling Illini football team, it wasn't the one he hoped. Multiple sources confirmed Bradley's actual target was embattled head coach Ron Zook.

"I'm pissed at my murder coach, Motherfucker Jones," said Bradley in an exclusive interview with this blog. "He told me that dumbass Zook was gonna be there, and goddammit, he was nowhere to be found! I was suspicious that there weren't no middle aged white people there. The intelligence failed me, man! I just did what I had to do to get outta there alive afterwards."

Bradley claimed he received directions to the house from a co-worker, Doug Strong, who claimed to have a friendship with Zook. He became suspicious as he was led to what has been officially termed a "sketchy" neighborhood by witty UIUC engineering students that have never ever seen a ghetto in their motherfucking overprotected lives.

"I come to the house, and I'm kinda surprised a guy that makes so much money would live in this shack across the corner from Church's, but when I got inside and saw the people, it all made sense," said Bradley. "Apparently it was Soul-Food Sunday. Totally nutso. There were boxes upon boxes of fried chicken, as far as the eye could see. Watermelon seeds littered the floor. Right after I came in, this bitch started doing a keg stand- yeah, that's right, they had a keg of grape soda! And the worst part- the whole place smelled like waffles. Nasty, I tell ya."

Bradley, who wore a dreadlock wig and FUBU jacket in an attempt to "fit into the environment," briefly conversed with a few members of the mostly college-student crowd. According to an eyewitness, the confrontation only broke out when the subject turned to comedy.

"Man, that sumbitch was one crazy Caucasian," said former Illini offensive coordinator and New Mexico head coach Mike Locksley, the only partygoer who agreed to an interview with this blog. "We was in a side room watching YouTube clips of the funniest mothafuckas there is- Eddie Murphy, Charlie Murphy, Chris Rock, Katt Williams, Kevin Hart, Lisa Lampanelli- and the crackah had no problem. But right before we put Pryor on, the guy was like, 'WAYNE BRADY! PUT ON SOME WAYNE BRADY!' We didn't even aks him any questions, we just pulled our Berettas out right then and there."

A firefight ensued, the partygoers packing pistols, Bradley with a Tommy gun authorities found was registered to a notorious Ugandan arms dealer. Bradley struck the Henry and the two other victims before a bullet through his shoulder rendered him helpless. Police arrived to arrest him immediately.

Zook had no comment on the situation, but said learning of the hit was unnerving. "I only took this job because of the low expectations. People in Chambana don't give a shit; I mean, even this is not even close to what it was like in Gainesville. I was actually in the witness protection program my entire last year at Florida, because these people started a siege around my house. And they all had AK-47s. It's a miracle I'm still alive to coach this shitty football team to four straight losses, really." He later remarked that despite the setback, he remained excited for next week's loss game against Wisconsin.

Some students were disappointed by the failed hit, but most really didn't care. "I actually found out about this on Reddit before I got on this awesome thread about Neil Degrasse Tyson," said Kole Italiano, the only non-Asian student we could find to interview. "I mean, I hear people want to Occupy Zook, but as part of the 1% myself, and as someone who doesn't give a shit about sports at a school with a mostly shitty athletic program, none of this really registers with me, and I don't give a shit, you know? Now let me get back to Skyrim, OK?" (We let him go back to playing Skyrim.)

Henry is expected to make a full recovery. The starting safety, an integral part of the defense, will miss the rest of the season. Let's be honest, though- nobody will really notice anyway.

Darkness in Happy Valley

There are few certain things in this world - death, taxes, gravity, Rams losses. Tonight, there is one less certainty.

Joe Paterno has been fired as Penn State head football coach. On Saturday, for the first time in over 60 years, he will not roam the Nittany Lions sideline at Beaver Stadium.

Football coaches, by the nature of the profession, don't last long in one place. The job is just too hard. The head coach is a teacher, a tactician, a counselor, a business manager, a policeman, a CEO- all in one job held by one man. The demands of time, family, and body drive some from the profession; demands of on-field performance drive out many more.

For a man to last as a major conference Division I head football coach for the 18 years I have been alive is surprising. To last the 43 years of my parent's lives is remarkable. While clearly Paterno took less on far less responsibility than the average head man over the last decade or so of his career, he was still the boss, a testament to his legend, his lucidity, his ruthlessness, and in part, as we have learned, his negligence.

By now, the sickening details and horrific allegations of child abuse against former Penn State assistant Jerry Sandusky have been rehashed again and again. We won't discuss them anymore because, quite frankly, we don't need to know anymore.

What we do need to know, the question we do need to ask, is simple. How? How did nobody know a pedophile was walking in their midst? After multiple complaints, how could nobody put the pieces of the puzzle together? How could Mike McQueary do nothing after seeing a 55 year old man raping a 10 year old boy in the football locker room? How could four men in leadership positions (McQueary, Paterno, vice president Gary Schultz (who was in charge of the police department) and athletic director Tim Curley), four men in the business of educating young people, four men who claim to follow the motto "success with honor," successively fail not only to report the incident to police, but even to confront Sandusky himself about it?

"With the benefit of hindsight, I wish I had done more."

The old cliché that hindsight is 20/20 has always struck me as totally unsatisfactory, no more so than in this case. It's a natural impulse to dwell on bygone events. But, as my wise mother always says, "you can't go back and unring a bell." The past is the past now. It is gruesome, it is awful, people deserve to pay for it, and it cannot be changed. It all leads to the biggest question these men must ask themselves everyday for a significant number of days. How can I look in the mirror each morning, knowing what I have (and have not) done, and go on with life as usual?

In 61 years at Penn State, Joe Paterno did so much right. In this situation, though, one can't skate by on some sort of lifetime achievement award. What happened years ago, and the (lack of) reaction to it, was unacceptable. We all face the same challenge with humanity- namely, that people are inconsistent and unpredictable. Good people do bad things. Worse, bad people can seem good.

Though Joe Paterno the football icon was an institution bigger than his institution, Joe Paterno remained a human being. He leaves in shame the gigantic hole he occupied for so long, a hole that threatens to swallow the identity of Penn State that he so carefully constructed over the course of his lifetime. What happened makes no sense, and never will. The whole situation is incredibly sad; the outcome for Paterno, deserved and unavoidable.

In State College, God is dead. It's the end of everything. Nobody escapes. Everybody loses.

The victimized young men most of all.